The Compassionate Friends (South Africa)

The Compassionate Friends have various self-help groups around South Africa, offering friendship and understanding to bereaved parents and siblings. Contact The Compassionate Friends if you need someone to talk to.

Hospice (South Africa)

Hospice provides palliative care for patients and their families throughout the world. They are an information resource for patients and care givers, helping to alleviate suffering associated with progressive, incurable illness.

Palliative care provides relief from pain and other distressing symptoms of life threatening illness. It is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families handling problems associated with terminal illness. Hospice offers a support system and integrates the psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care.

The Organ Donor Foundation is a non-profit charity, which aims to address the critical shortage of organ and tissue donors in South Africa. One organ donor can save seven people, 1 heart, 2 lungs, 1 liver, 2 kidneys and 1 pancreas. Organ donation is the ‘gift of life’. Let’s ensure that South Africa remains a centre of excellence for organ and tissue transplantation. Transplants save lives.

Trained counsellors operate the Mental Health Counselling centre and the toll free Suicide Crisis Line every day from 8am to 8pm. The SA Depression and Anxiety group has over 120 support groups nationwide.

The NFDA is the oldest professional body of funeral directors / undertakers in Southern Africa. Its members accept the NFDA’s code of conduct, and minimum health requirements as a basis for doing business. It is recommended to make use of funeral businesses that are members of the NFDA for consumer protection.

International links to resources outside of South Africa

Infants Remembered In Silence (USA)

IRIS offers parents, families, friends and professionals support, education and resources on the death of a child in early pregnancy (miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy etc.), or from premature birth, stillbirth, neo-natal death, birth defects, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), illness and all other types of infant and early childhood death. Grieving is not about forgetting… It is about remembering.

"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love."

Washington Irving

"Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy."

eskimo proverb

“The idea is to die young as late as possible.”

Ashley Montagu, (1905 –1999)

“He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt”

Joseph Heller, 1923

“The family with an old person in it possesses a jewel.”

Chinese saying

"And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation"

Kahlil Gibran

“Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you’re still alive, it isn’t.”

Richard Bach, (Illusions)

“I saw him now going the way of all flesh.”

John Webster

"There are always flowers for those who want to see them"

Henri Matisse

“Dear world, I am leaving you because I am bored. I am leaving you with your worries. Good luck."

George Sanders, suicide note 25 April 1972

“We meet but briefly in life, if we touch each other with stardust – that is everything.”

Author unknown.

"And when I saw you sleeping, so peaceful and free from pain, I could not wish you back to suffer that again"